Diving into the deep end of impact investing – Finnfund trainees share their experiences

For the spring/summer period of 2023, we were looking for trainees to work in our Compliance, Development Impact, Finance and Risk Management teams. One by one, the four trainees started working at Finnfund, quickly becoming important players in their teams. Once they had all started, our People and Culture team arranged a Trainee Day where they got together and learned about impact investing and heard career stories of some of our staff members. It was also a good opportunity to catch up and hear how the first weeks had been!

“You can handle that”

“My previous experience is from bigger organisations, and it was interesting to see what my role would look like here since the team is quite small” says Eetu Turunen who works in the Finance team. “I have actually been surprised by the trust that I have been given from day one – I feel very welcome and I’m sure I will learn a lot during this summer. A sentence I’ve heard many times already is “Eetu can handle that” and indeed I can!” he says.

Vilma Soini who works in the Compliance team has also jumped straight into the deep end. “In bigger organisations, you often end up knowing only small parts of the business”, she says. “At Finnfund, you really get a good overview on what the company is working on.” She too feels that from the first day, she was given responsibility and a big chunk of trust.

International colleagues

For Gyuree Lee who works in the Development Impact team, it’s been a positive surprise to learn that so many of her colleagues have international background. Besides Gyuree who comes from South Korea, there are seven other nationalities represented among the Finnfund staff, but many staff members have studied and worked abroad, often in developing countries. For a foreign student such as herself, Gyuree describes the traineeship as a great opportunity as the working language is English and the atmosphere quite international. “Also, people are genuinely interested in who we, the trainees, are”, says Gyuree. “It makes me feel like I really am a part of this company.”

A meaningful job

All of the trainees share an interest in global challenges and impact investing. “This is not your typical investment company”, says Juho Lempinen from the Risk Management team. “And that’s exactly why I wanted to work here. I wanted to see the whole investment process and be able to participate in different parts of the investment cycle. That, and the concept of impact investing, were the main reasons I applied – and I’m glad I did.”

Relaxed, welcoming, busy – these are the words that the group uses to describe their first impressions. Trainees are being given an opportunity to learn, to figure out the best way to do things, while at the same time they are being given lots of responsibility. “You must not be scared to ask people for advice since new things pop up all the time”, says Gyuree. “My goal is to learn as much as possible” she says. The others agree.

In the picture from left: trainees Vilma Soini, Juho Lempinen, Eetu Turunen, Gyuree Lee and Marja Pentikäinen from the People & Culture team who organised the Trainee Day

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